Move over Harry Potter and the cloak of invisibility -- this one cost only $100!

University of Rochester, New York, researchers have produced a simple device that will "cloak" just about any object. The parts are readily available, it was cheap -- but the real inventing came from their minds.

It's not a drape, coat, or paint. It's a lens device that "bends" light around objects and makes them disappear!

Utilizing four lenses and off-the-shelf hardware, the device can be tailored in various sizes. According to Fox News:

'The Rochester Cloak’, as it’s being dubbed, uses a simplified four-lens system that essentially bends light around any objects you put into the middle of the chain — you’re able to see the area in the background as normal, but not the item in the foreground. According to its inventors, it can be scaled up using any size of lens, and the team responsible for the setup has used standard, off-the-shelf hardware."

Does this mean we will be able to make ourselves disappear? Probably not. But the very idea that an object that passes through a certain line-of-sight can vanish is pretty cool.   No, the object itself doesn't vanish. But the light that brings the view of the object to our eyes, does. Pretty remarkable, nonetheless!

 

 

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